In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140. Further, 61% of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities. An estimated 12.6% of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6% of Hispanic men and 1.7% of white men. Could racism, deeply rooted despair, misguided and ultra puritanical laws about drug use, and pervasive poverty, have something to do with these appalling statistics? Does anyone doubt that if almost 13% of all white young men were behind bars there would an explosion in this nation? These are indeed troubling questions that point toward many uncomfortable traits in American culture, but shouldn’t a system that never quite manages to eliminate poverty in the midst of grotesque riches have to answer some hard questions, too?
Running on empty and in circles:
To the dismay of those who treasure Capitalist orthodoxy, it is truly the end of history for them, as a dominant class, when human ingenuity, and response to so called consumer demand, equals profiting off of all the misfortune the system itself creates. This is truly the viral circular process the capitalist system is engulfed in, until it swallows us all into the black hole it creates, and finally has nothing left to sell but gas masks, and coffins.
Some “green energy” capitalists, with some vision like Gore, know that to save capitalism they must adapt to the crises they themselves have created as a class, and hence the new grand delusion. The new ideology of capitalism will surely be that the need for a clean society will facilitate demand, and firms will react accordingly to the good old-fashioned laws of supply and demand and clean up the mess. If anyone just flinched at the plausibility of that thought please pinch yourself now and wake up before you even bother letting those capitalist gears do any more grinding.
Albert Einstein sums up eloquently the nature of exploitation in Capitalist society:
“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor — not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production — that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods — may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.”
Indeed, Einstein saw this process very clearly, although the elites have worked tirelessly to keep all eyes off of them, in too many ways to mention here. The wheels of production in chaotic hands, and always serving selfish interests framed in extremely myopic historical spurts, will eventually be the demise of us all, including the businessmen who benefit materially in the short term. Is this the best humanity can do? I would hope not.
Enter a Truly New World
“The goal of a good society is to structure social relations and institutions so that cooperative and generous impulses are rewarded, while antisocial ones are discouraged. The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment — or at least much handicap — to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.”
–Michael Parenti
Most Americans become terrified when they hear the words “abolishing private property” because they fail to fully grasp what socialists or anarcho-libertarians mean when they say it. Obviously this paranoia has historical roots in the countless lies of anti-communism, especially in our nation where it is most fierce, or abroad where it is less of a dirty word, but it’s not necessary to explore those roots to understand the feeling of losing what one considers to be his or her own hard earned personal security or (in far too many cases) meager comforts. Not everyone needs a boat on top of three gas-guzzling cars per household – not at all something I would consider to be a necessity, although lack of affordable, convenient, and safe public transportation seems to make it one in our nation.
But mostly all of this is a gigantic misunderstanding, but not a “good faith” misunderstanding, but a gigantic, criminal, “bad faith” misunderstanding, one concocted, abetted, and delivered by plutocratic interests and their innumerable agents in the media, the academics, the professions, and of course the bought off and deeply corrupted political class. Now, let’s get something clear before we go on. Socialist nations, such as they existed, or struggle to exist, in the grip of longstanding grave and unremitting economic, military, and diplomatic hostility, have made mistakes, and miscalculations, and have even committed what many would call crimes, and this paper is not about denying that such mistakes were made, or that everything that ever happened under the label of “Socialism” was exempt from criticism. At this stage of moral and political human development, conflict between ideologies, errors are bound to exist, victims are bound to exist. But honesty requires us to look at the record (I can see already how all the foaming-at-the-mouth anticommunists will come crawling from all the habitual corners to sound off in this space about the huge crimes of “socialism” under Stalin, under Fidel Castro, under Mao, etc, etc. There’s no point in arguing with anti-communists, any more than you can argue with Christian fundamentalists, or Islamic fanatics, or any other form of non-rational dogma. Facts and proportion, let alone fairness, rarely penetrate such walls. So, let them say what they have to say, and let history decide the issue at some point.)
We said above that socialist states could indeed be accused of mistakes, of excesses, even of crimes. But the non-socialist nations—far more numerous, far richer, and far older, are guilty of countless more errors, and many, many more crimes, and yet no one (in our society) is clamoring from the highest propaganda pulpits to call them criminal, “unthinkable,” and beyond the pale. Why accept the charges of criminality at face value when it comes to socialism but refuse to hear the far richer indictment of capitalism?
So let’s go back to our clarification. When Socialists talk about abolishing “private property” they are referring to something entirely different than repossessing your home, apartment, clothing, furniture, and toothbrush, or, as so many capitalist propagandists have insinuated to alarm the public, “share your bed and wife.” Quite the contrary, socialists believe, at the core of their philosophy, that all people have a universal right to the factors of subsistence, dignified work, and unrestricted access to the best our collective human labor has to offer—first on the basis of useful labor contributed, and later, when abundance has been attained, on the basis of simple need. Why is that idea so alarming to so many?
Rather, when Socialists talk about abolishing “private property” what they are in fact referring to is “social private property”, which is really a technical term to define industries vital to our survival as a global community, not to mention everyday life. In a Socialist America, citizens would collectively produce goods and services in a rationally planned, democratic, and egalitarian fashion, in which everyone would enjoy equal access, such as we do now at the public library, public schools, social security, Medicare, the post office, the fire department, medical emergency rooms, and many other federal and municipal services, including the famous TVA (The Tennessee Valley Authority ( TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation , fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly hard hit by the Great Depression.—Eds.). All of these are in fact s socialist institutions and programs in our midst. Islands of socialism adrift in a vast ocean of capitalism, which continually threatens them with disappearance, or, as capitalist apologists prefer to put it, “privatization.”
(As Bush’s savage budgetary cuts have so clearly illustrated.) Do you tremble in fear when you approach a fireman? Or the local librarian? Would you like the emergency responders to ask about your insurance policy before rushing over to help you if stricken with a heart attack?
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